Los Angeles daily herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1884-1890, 1887-06-24
Liberty Under Law.

The great jubilee just celebrated in
England on the fiftieth anniversary of
victoria's accession to the throne of
that ountry. calls to mind with marked
emphasis the difference between the
constitutional monarchy of Great Britain
and the republic of the United States.
Liberty under law is the foundation
stone on which both governments rest.
But with us the foundation is solid,
broad and perfect in its symmetry. In
the New World there was the opportu-
tunity of beginning the building up of
body polite de movo, and the men
were found with the courage of their
convictions to do the work thoroughly.
En- gland has no constitution. Her gov
eminent is gigantic structure Of pre-.
edent. There is much of that sort of
make up glanced at in the Scriptures,
where men sewed pieces of new skin on
old water vessels too frail to bear repair
ing, with the result that the new tore
off with part of the old and made a
larger hole than there was at first.
To note two grand 'and fundamental
points of divergence will suffice as illus
trative of our statements. With Us gov
eminent and ecclesiasticism were d.
vorced forever. In England, Wales,
Ireland and Scotland still pay tithes to
support forms of religion their people do
not follow.
Again all hereditary right to rule Mas
abrogated by the trainers of the Ameri-
can constitution. The government with
us is indeed from the people and by the
people as it is for the people. Our Leg
islators. executors and judges are chosen
with more or less direction Immediately
by the people.
Here are two old vessels whose USE
fulness is much impaired by the use of
centuries, on to which the English
people find it hard to sew the
new material of modern times.
There is perhaps no other two princi-
Piles which they find it harder to recon-
cile with the progressive ideas of the
day, than these two of compulsory sup
port of forms of religion that people do
not hold, and this other of having men
born to place in the making of laws,
and of the execution of the same. Here
are relics Of barbarous, or semi. civ.
iized past utterly unsuited to that lib
erty under law to which all the progress
of our day tends.
Victoria has reigned fifty years. In
all that half century she has
never vetoed bill passed by Parlia-
ment. Indeed, since that fatal
day when the head of Charles l. fell
u nder the axe. no English monarch has
dared do other than sign any bill duly
presented for the royal assent. Remem.
Der, there is no provision made to pass
a law over the royal veto. Here is the
ba rbarism of the dead past coming up
like ghost in the full noon.time of the
living present. 1t is a remnant of
those days when the king was an auto.
crat and made and executed laws to suit
himself.
With us there is perfect liberty under
law. Our chief magistrate is safe to
sign, pocket or veto bill; because the
re representatives. of the people are armed
with power to pass such q measure
over his veto.
Not only has the Queen of England,
the Empress of India, the woman of SO
ma ny high. sounding titles never vetoed
bill, but she has not in all the fifty
ye ars of her reign exercised any infiu.
ence, much less control, over the course
of the kingdom politically. Her word
has been law in matters of social
etiquette in her court. She has
in m orals, manners and education exer-
cised great influence in her day as a
woman. Other women, uncrowned, have
without the exalted eminence OF a throne
one more in those directions. She did
what the personal power within her as a
woman enabled her to do. But as a
Queen she has been little, if anything,
more than fgure-head. Her title and
position do not harmonic with thai
course of liberty under law on which
the real government of England rests.
Being out of sympathy with the nation,
she nominally rules, not being able to be
what her Office once called upon the
m onarch of England to be, she has be-
come nonentity politically.